Possessed

Her body jerks with the music.

Commanded by a hypnotic spell forbidding to resist.

With every move, the red shoes forbid her to stop.

Twirling, round and round, her body cries.

She must perform this ritual dance, obeying its curse.

As a marionette, having no control and being controlled.

Time is dancing past her fast, rain into shine, day becomes night.

The eternal dancing whirls on.

Forever at the mercy of the beautiful red shoes.

 

Stars

The stars are forever looking down on us.

They stay above, observing, while we sleep or walk the nights. 

With twinkling designs sewed in its blanket of night. 

Creating an endless pattern, sparkling across the heavens.

 Shining bright with each wish it receives. 

Takes it, shoots it across the sky to have it granted. 

They continue to look down on us,
fascinated by Earth's constellations.

As we lay on the fields looking back at them.

Creative Thinking Poem

Her vision follows the ticking hands of time

Circling it over and again

It seems to her, the ticking is constant

Moving forward; and she remains frozen.

As she sits in closed room, again and again

The movement of her fingers loudly taps

A drumming beat on desk, around blank paper

In which the drumming continues.  

Only in time, the beat slowly silence 

Words flow in, dancing on the blank, cold paper

Left from thought and passed on.

The Man with the Hoe Poem Response

This poem was not as long as the previous poem, and I sorta see what is going on. I do notice a pattern of asking questions. Almost every line starts off with a starting question of 'how', 'is' or 'what.' I see this poem as both a bit of a depressing poem and a poem of many questions. Some parts in the poem, it is asking the Lord God these questions, and hoping for the right answer in return. Unlike the other poem, each line is not cut short and it is not separated into two lines, in this poem their is five paragraphs. How I see this poem, is a man that is questioning life and the purpose of it. Maybe the man is having a mid-life crisis. Or that his is very curious about everything in the world. I don't see this poem as a list poem, like some of the other poems I have read. This to me seems like another poem that is just talking and not trying to cut its words short and trying to make it rhyme.

I have to admit that I was not expecting another depressing like poem to read after the last poem. Also from reading the title of this poem, I was expecting a different type of poem. My first thought was that this poem was going to be about a man with a woman and maybe some conflict or message that it is telling to the readers, or something that was less depressing than what I just read. It may not be a depressing type poem, but that is what I got after reading this. Also that if this was that type of poem, then I can sorta relate to being that person that has so many questions about everything and waiting for an answer to appear. I wish there was more I can write about this poem, but I think I need another person to explain to me what is the meaning of this poem and if I am close with any of my guesses.

The Man with a Blue Guitar poem response

The first thing I noticed about this poem is that it is a long poem. Personally I am not a fan of really long poems, I tend to find myself loosing interest or loosing my place and trying to recall everything in the poem and what story it is telling. I saw that throughout the poem, it like to repeat words like 'blue guitar' and there were some rhyming words. while reading this poem, I got the feeling like it was a depressing type of poem, and when I saw the word's 'blue guitar' in made it seem like that was the intention. The reason why I say that is because, the way I see it, (and I am not going by how the illustration) is that blue usually is reference as a sad emotion like red usually mean angry. I don't know if that is how this poem is meant to be read, but that is how I read it as.

I also noticed that this poem did not have long sentences and that it mostly stayed with having two lines then double spacing to the next line. And that the words were shortened, and something new I noticed is at some sections of the poem, the same words would be used but would be switched around. I would almost say that this poem was maybe trying to be a list poem, because they kept using the words 'blue guitar' and on both lines a word would be used twice.

I wish I could have the correct answer to say what this poem is telling, but I just don't know. It seemed like there was a new thing going on in each paragraph, that did not seem to relate to the other things in the beginning, besides the mentioning of the 'blue guitar'. But what I can say that I like is that in some parts of the poem, the man with the blue guitar says things like 'thats the way they are' meaning that nothing can be done to change what it already is. I think in the beginning people tell him what not to play with that blue guitar or what should be played. But the man that has the blue guitar plays what he feels and that is the way it is. Again, long poems are not my strong suit, it is hard for me to have in my mind a visual story from reading this poem. So many different things happening, and confused as to how it connects. Perhaps I am thinking too much as to how writing a story is done, but most of the stuff I read, I can put into a visual story like a movie playing in my head.

My Father's Love Letters Illustration

 

After listening to the poem 'My Father's Love Letters' by Yusef Komunyakaa, I came up with this idea for an illustration. In the poem, the husband and wife are separated, and the husband asks his son to write letters to his wife. What came to my mind was having the husband holding the sealed letter in his hand, and then an image of his wife holding the letter. I chose to not include so much detail in this piece and tried to focus on simple colors and design. 

Response to Skeleton Pirate with Ghost Ship

This poem was fun to read. The style of this poem is more like telling a story from one persons point of view, or in this case the talking is coming from a skeleton (I think). My favorite line is in the beginning, 'if not for flesh's pretty paint, we're just a bunch of skeletons'. I like how they used a different way of describing skin, by saying it is flesh's pretty paint. Then the poem goes into talking about different ghost, like the little dead ghost girl playing hide and seek. There is another imagine that I see in my head of a ghost girl playing this game, but not knowing that she is dead, and that she is just really good at this game.

To me this poem is showing us from the skeleton's view of how he likes the ghost, and they appeal to him. Almost as if the skeleton wished he was a ghost and not a body of bones.

Response to The Parable of the Blind by William Carlos Williams

I had to read this poem over a couple of times to understand it. This poem does paint an image and even the painting next to it, is pretty close to what I imagined when reading this. This poem is more of a descriptive poem, in which it is telling everything that is going on, from the blind people to the knowing about the church in the background.

I have to say when reading this poem, I can see that not all poems have to rhyming or short. And that it can simple just talk about the visuals. This poem really made sure that the reader would have an image in their heads. For the first half of this poem I got the image of the group of beggars leading each other, even without the painting. But for some reason I get confused when it goes into this line and continuing to the end. When it goes from 'where the picture and the composition ends back of which no seeing man' to the end, I feel like I lost sight of the group of beggars leading each other. Cause then that is where it goes into the talk about the area around them. Again it might just be me for seeing things visually and if I see the picture first and read the poem, then I think that what ever is in the painting is going to be the main focus. Like when you look at a book and you see a person on the cover, you think that is are main focus and that would lead the story.

I guess for me, if I wanted to change this poem a bit, I would say maybe some more detail on the group of beggars. Because from looking at the image and reading that line that they lead each other downward across the canvas. I would like to know more about them, maybe a few lines about each of them and describe what they look like (like what are they wearing, how are they different from one another). And also from looking at the painting, the man that is leading them has a mean look on his face, like he is going to lead them somewhere until they trip and hurt themselves or just play jokes on them, because they are blind. So maybe more information on him to add on the image in our imagination.

To Be Complete

Your heart is empty

like a glass with no wine

Like a missing puzzle piece

You are not complete

Love Songs by Robert Kelly Poem Response

The first 'Love Song' poem I was not sure as to what is direction Kelly is going. Maybe It's me and maybe I am not seeing something. But at the beginning of this poem, I am not sure what he is talking about. If I have to make a guess, I would say Kelly is talking about the feelings you get when you fall in love. Where he says ' this subtle sort of thing that doesn't happen every night' makes me think of when you meet someone and you discover new feelings that you never felt before. And something as special as this, does not happen every night, making the fact of falling in love even more special. I do like that line in the poem for those reasons, if they are true. Another line in the poem that I am drawn to is 'Everything I care for happens all the time.' What I think of after reading this line is not only strong words, but also are saying another message. What this line says to me is Everything I care for, meaning being with the one you love is all that matters. And just being around the person you love makes it everything you do more meaningful.

I will say that this is a different type of love poem. I have read other love poetry that plays deep into the romantic and passionate type of love. This seems like this is coming for the guys perspective, like say a boyfriend reading to his girlfriend a poem and it does not have to be all cuties. True love is all about honesty, and any words that are truly honest can be just as moving as any romantic love poem.

 The second Love poem, again reads to me as speaking the truth about why they love this person. And it could just be the simple things like the walk or the way you talk. It is like people, 'just be yourself' and this is what I think of after reading this. It is similar to the first love poem in being honest and that the words are powerful and true. And that there is no need to go all out and make the idea of falling/ being in love the way it is portrayed in books, TV shows and movies. Love is not fabricated, it meant to be honest, truth and real.

Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock by Wallace Stevens Poem Response

This was a short poem to listen to. After listening to this poem a couple of times, I think I see a pattern. It is not a list patter where you see a word or a sentence be repeated over and over. But what I see is the word None being used only twice and the beginning part and middle part of the poem is telling the listener/reader  what the gowns color is, and what it is not. It is also telling the reader right away that something is not this or that. This was a very confusing poem, and I don't see how it all connects, especially with the title of the poem. To me this poem is jumping around from one place to another, starting with a haunted house, night-gowns (in whatever color, I lost track), to animals and then ending with a drunk man.

I know that I am a visual learner and I like to find things that connect and have either a symbol or meaning in poems, and stories. This just made me feel lost in my own thoughts. This poem could have more things to say, I feel like it was cut short when it stops at the 'in red weather.' I would not even know what image I could place to go with this poem.

After Making Love We Hear Footsteps poem illustration

The poem I chose to illustrate was 'After Making Love We Hear Footsteps' by Galway Kinnell. I listened to this poem on www.poets.org and I thought that this was a funny poem. It reminds of those times when I was little and I would come to my parents room just watching TV, and sit in the middle till I fell asleep. I like the little details that Kinnell put into this poem to show that the boy was little, with the description of his baseball PJ's. This to me is an innocent poem that any parent will get a laugh at and can connect to. The poem is not long and it does not rhyme, but it does give the image of what is going on. Something that I need more work in with my poems. This is a good example that will help me with future poems. 

In my illustration I wanted to draw the moment when the couple stops making love, and they look for the direction of the footsteps. In my mind I imagined that through the open door, you see the hall light on and on the floor you see a small shadow figure. This would be the moments where the boy is about to ask his parents a question. I drew this illustration in a different style than what I usually do. I went with illustration this by using flat colors, and a simple look on the people. I think I can see this poem and illustration be in those parent magazines as something fun to read. 

 

After Making Love We Hear Footsteps

by Galway Kinnell

For I can snore like a bullhorn 
or play loud music
or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman 
and Fergus will only sink deeper
into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash, 
but let there be that heavy breathing
or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house 
and he will wrench himself awake 
and make for it on the run—as now, we lie together, 
after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies, 
familiar touch of the long-married, 
and he appears—in his baseball pajamas, it happens, 
the neck opening so small he has to screw them on—
and flops down between us and hugs us and snuggles himself to sleep, 
his face gleaming with satisfaction at being this very child.

In the half darkness we look at each other 
and smile
and touch arms across this little, startlingly muscled body—
this one whom habit of memory propels to the ground of his making, 
sleeper only the mortal sounds can sing awake, 
this blessing love gives again into our arms.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15927